Sealed Away Blog: Mono Black Horizons

Mono Black gets a lot of its power from maximizing cards that are already good, Defile and Crypt Rats. Defile becomes Skred in this deck, and Crypt Rats is either the perfect sweeper, a kill condition, or a way to draw the game intentionally when things look ugly.

Defile and Crypt Rats should be the centerpieces of this deck, and if you can take enough of the total Black cards in the draft no one else will be able to play these. Two cards don't make a deck, as much as we'd like them to, so knowing what the rest of the deck looks like is paramount. The key interaction that this deck should be built around is made up of 4 commons that all interact favorably together, Gluttonous Slug, First-Sphere Gargantua, Ransack the Lab, and Rank Officer. Ransack the Lab sets everything up, as it allows you to put your pieces together more consistently. At the same time, it can incidentally put copies of the Gargantua in the graveyard, and provide fuel for Rank Officer's ability. Gluttonous Slug will benefit from any casting of Rank Officer, as you'll get two counters from evolve at 1/4 or less as long as you put the initial evolve trigger on the stack first. While doing this, discarding a First-Sphere Gargantua from hand for Rank Officer will threaten a 4/7 Slug, a new card, and 5 damage to the opponent.

Of these cards, the only one you'll really have to fight over is Gluttonous Slug, as none of the other pieces are super popular. Ideally, your mono black decks will have 2 of each of these cards minimum, ideally with as many Slugs as you can possibly get.

Other key cards:

Barren Moor never has a lower cost to play than here, as we can pretty easily fit cycling it into our curve regardless of what we're up too. Just be mindful that it doesn't count as a Swamp for Defile. Unearth is largely important to rebuy Gluttonous Slug, generate a tempo advantage combined with Ransack the Lab, and most importantly get Crypt Rats in for 1 mana to maximize its power. Lesser Masticore operates as a back-up, cheaper Rank Officer, so you'll want it when you have First-Sphere Gargantuas aplenty.

As with any mono color deck, there's no real incentive to try to end up here, this is just somewhere you can end up consistently when things are a bit weird. You generally end up in Mono Black by taking a bunch of black cards in the first 4-7 picks and then never seeing a good incentive to switch into another color. Crypt Rats can certainly have a big influence, as that card gets miles better in a deck like this vs. any other deck you can have. If you take a few of them early and Black is quite open, you can be happy to end up here.

Splashing

One of the best things about being so heavy on one color is the ability to just take any good card you see without a heavy colored mana commitment, and just throw in in the deck for a low cost. The best examples of this will be powerful rares, like Fallen Shinobi, and removal spells with utility, like Settle Beyond Reality. Ideally you're looking for things you wouldn't normally be able to do in Mono Black, so aside from bombs that'll mean exile removal, card draw, or a sideboard card.

Land Count

As a general rule, play 16 lands in these decks. At least 13 of them should be Swamps, and you can play a Frost Walk Bastion or Cave of Temptation and a couple of Barren Moor. In the unlikely event you get more than 2 Barren Moor, play 17 lands, or even 18 lands if you got more than 4. Barren Moor really punishes you for having too low of a land count, as it'll cycle less often and annoyingly come into play tapped more often. If we're splashing, play 17 lands as you'll need it to have access to both colors consistently.

Primarily, these decks are both full of cycling cards like Ransack the Lab and Unearth, and have easy color commitments as all of your lands can cast all of your spells; 16 lands will generally be enough to consistently hit your 2nd land drop where your cyclers get turned on in an emergency.

Pick Order

The Best of the Best in order, once you're already sure you're Mono Black. Cordial Vampire and Undead Augur can go either way, depending on how many removal spells/changelings for the Vampire and how many other Zombies or sacrifice outlets for Undead Auger.